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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25606312">Living With Gas In Your Lungs</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusfriend/pseuds/citrusfriend'>citrusfriend</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Poetry [22]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Original Work</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>BLM, Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, Choosing to Live, Civil War, Coronavirus, Fuck the Police, Gen, Healing, Hopeful Ending, Poetry, Politics, Protests, Recovery, Revolution, Riots, Self-Acceptance, Self-Love, Self-empowerment, Slam Poetry, Social Commentary, Social Justice, Suicidal Thoughts, black lives matter movement, blm movement</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:07:45</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>489</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25606312</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/citrusfriend/pseuds/citrusfriend</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When the world starts the next chapter in the history book,<br/>I hope it is titled "Revolution."</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Poetry [22]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1320233</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Living With Gas In Your Lungs</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Feel like I should start a new series "Poems that the fbi could probably arrest me for"</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Last year, I decided that<br/>I do not want to die.<br/>Because it is a decision.<br/>Choosing to live and choosing to <em>want</em> to live<br/>are two different decisions, but most days,<br/>I can make both at least once.</p><p><strike>"Kill yourself."</strike><br/>No, I don't want to die.<br/><strike>"Kill yourself."</strike><br/>No, I don't want to die.<br/><strike>"Go join a protest."</strike><br/>No, I don't want to die.<br/><strike>"Hunt and kill the boy who raped your 16 year old coworker in the work parking lot."</strike><br/>No, I don't want to die.<br/><strike>"Threaten the man who threatened to kidnap your 17 year old coworker."</strike><br/>No, I don't want to die.<br/><strike>"Go kill a cop."</strike><br/>No, I don't want to die.<br/><strike>"Go kill your father."</strike><br/>No, I don't want to die.<br/><strike>"Go fight the feds."</strike><br/>No, I don't want to die.<br/><strike>"If you won't do any of this,</strike><br/><strike>you are doing nothing,</strike><br/><strike>so you should just go kill yourself."</strike><br/>No.<br/>No, <em>I don't want to die.</em></p><p>It feels like cruelty;<br/>I first began choosing to live mere months before a global pandemic,<br/>a disease that would target my already weak lungs,<br/>my already damaged immune system.<br/>I first began choosing to live mere months before a civil war,<br/>a war I would kill for, but am no longer willing to die for.</p><p>I will not martyr myself for any cause,<br/>I will not let anyone reduce me to nothing but a body for storage again.<br/>I am no gas canister, I am no human shield,<br/>I am no magazine for their bullets.<br/>There is more to a revolution than the infantry,<br/>and if there is no space to try outside of the fight,<br/>then I will fight to carve one for myself.<br/>I am more than organs and flesh,<br/>I am more than lungs clenching around clouds and <em>corpses,</em><br/>I am more than a minority dying for solidarity,<br/>I am more than what they can beat out of me.<br/>This revolution is more than a history lesson,<br/>it is our chance to keep the history books from redacting our dead,<br/>it is our beginning,<br/>it is the only way to get justice.<br/>I will not let myself die before we turn past the acknowledgement page,<br/>I will not be a number in the index of a banned book.</p><p>When the world starts the next chapter in the history book,<br/>I hope it is titled "Revolution."<br/>I hope students will write essays about how we tore down the government,<br/>how we abolished the police and the concentration camps.<br/>I hope they remember the names of the murdered.<br/>I hope the pledge of allegiance becomes a promise to keep fighting.<br/>I hope the national anthem is full of the names we've lost,<br/>the stories we memorize.<br/>I hope we know that we fought, that we won.<br/>I hope that I live long enough to see it.<br/><strong>I will fight to make sure that we all do.</strong></p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>7/19/2020 &amp; 7/30/2020</p></blockquote></div></div>
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